Tag Archives: California Progress Report

California

California Blogosphere Loses A Giant – But There’s a Happy Ending

Major congratulations to California Progress Report publisher Frank Russo, who will become the new chief of staff to progressive Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner.

This will be my third trip working under the Capitol dome in Sacramento-having worked in the 70’s fresh out of law school as Administrative Assistant to an Assemblymember and in the 80’s as Legal Counsel to the Speaker of the Assembly where I reviewed the work of the Judiciary and Public Safety Committees among other matters.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be working with Nancy Skinner and what a delight it has been to begin searching for staff and set up both the Sacramento and district offices with her. Technically she is not yet an Assemblymember and I am not yet hired, but the work has begun full throttle. With the voters’ approval, she will be in the Assembly for a short six years under term limits and wants to hit the ground running.

For selfish reasons, this is bittersweet.  For anyone trying to cover the byzantine twists and turns in Sacramento, Frank has been an invaluable resource.  He’s been one of the few journalists to cover the committee hearings, the press conferences, and the major legislation with anything approaching immediacy, delivering news and information you simply can’t get anywhere else.  He also achieved a milestone, becoming the first blogger to earn a press credential from a state legislature that vets their reporters.  The state’s political media has already withered to the bone, and Russo’s departure shrinks that pool even more.  However, there is a happy ending here.

I also have the good fortune to announce that a California nonprofit organization will be shepherding the California Progress Report from being published, edited, and written by me to a consortium of different organizations who see the value of having a daily reporting of California state news and opinion in this age of the decline of the established media. We will have more details about that coming out during the week.

That’s very reassuring, and I hope whoever takes over has the tenacity and credibility of Russo.  For now, I will just wish him the best in the future, and offer my sincere thanks for the fine job he has done building the California Progress Report over the past few years.  

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CA-InsComm: Poizner caught with his hand in the cookie jar

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(Cross posted to dKos and MyDD. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Over at the California Progress Report, Frank has been doing some great snooping at Steve Poizner’s records.  It seems Poizner, the GOP Candidate for Insurance Commissioner against our dear Cruz, claims that he’s insurance money free.  Turns out, that’s not the case so much:

Republican candidate for state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner has been making his pledge to not accept any campaign contributions from the insurance industry a centerpiece of his campaign.  This is highlighted on his campaign website. In an “exclusive column penned by Steve Poizner” in the conservative FlashReport, he champions himself as a “Real Reformer.” 

Because I’m not taking a dime of insurance company money, I won’t be taken in by any schemes that typically drive up insurance costs in California. …

Because I refuse to accept that money, I’m no one’s lap dog – my office will be home to the highest ethical standards, not the highest campaign bidder.  I won’t merely be an industry watchdog, I intend to be a pit bull when it comes to pursuing fraud and abuse.

…[T]he biggest problem he has is that a campaign committee he controls has already received hundreds of thousands of insurance company contributions, some direct and some through other committees that they have contributed heavily to. CPR 9/22/06

I won’t bore you with all the gory details of the fiscal transactions.  Frank explains those plenty well, and I’ll let you click on over toe California Progress Report for the full story.  But, here’s a quick example:

On November 2, 2005, two insurance contributions totaling $75,000 is [sic] deposited in the Chamber’s PAC and the very next day $75,000 is given to Poizner’s committee.

What does this remind you of?  Tom Delay’s TRMPAC scam?  That’s the case Delay is still under indictment for laundering corporate donations into Texas campaigns illegaly. So, it’s not that Poizner isn’t taking insurance company money, it’s that he’s just doing it on the down-low.  And we all know that taking money on the down-low isn’t good for anybody…except the participants.  At least Cruz acknowledges his campaign contributions.  So, sure, perhaps the “Steve Poizner for I.C. Campaign” hasn’t taken any money directly from insurance companies, but they’ve received laundered money from them.

This little game of Pick-a-shell is a big disservice to the voters and the State of California.  So, Steve, let’s quit the charade, your money doesn’t buy you piety. Cut it out with the  sanctimony and play the game with the same rules as everybody else.